Mary Beth was born on May 30, 1937 in Omaha, Nebraska. She passed away peacefully on July 3, 2023. Mary Beth was adopted by her loving parents Dr. Ernest “Doc” and Marie Lennemann and grew up in Falls City. She attended Falls City High School and graduated in 1955. After high school, she attended Duchesne College in Omaha for two years, and was a student at an airline school in Kansas City the following year.
In June of 1958, she married Eugene Jay Duryea from Dawson, Nebraska. Doc and Marie were good friends with Jay’s parents, Cecil P. “Crip” and Frances Duryea and in 1934, Doc was the physician who delivered his future son-in-law, Jay.
Jay and Mary Beth began their new life in Houston, Texas and they had three children. Eric Jay (b. Nov. 29, 1960 – d. Oct. 18, 2017), Teresa Marie (b. 1962) and Pauline Frances (b. 1969). Mary Beth was a loving mom who mostly stayed home to raise her family, but she did have several jobs outside the home. She worked as an administrative assistant in a hospital, and later earned her real estate license and worked for Swilley-Hudson Real Estate in Houston.
Mary Beth was most proud of her two grandchildren, Elizabeth Ann, and Christopher Kwai. When the grandkids were little, she helped care for them during the workday, and they brought her great joy. When Elizabeth got married in 2022, she wore the same wedding dress her grandmother wore in 1958, and Teresa wore in 1985.
Her hobbies were knitting, sewing, and needlepoint. She was always a very social person and loved being with others. Mary Beth remained lifelong friends with her two closest high school friends, Patty O’Grady, who lives in Falls City, and Jane Martin, who lives in Omaha. She also loved dogs, and when she didn’t have a dog of her own, she loved her many grand-dogs and neighbors’ dogs just as much.
After Jay passed away in 2005, Mary Beth married Otis Kyle. Otis passed away in 2013. She is survived by her two daughters and sons-in-law, Pauline and Kenny Word (Bend, Oregon), Teresa and Jimmy Wong (Houston), grandchildren Elizabeth Wong and husband Ronald Stockwell (New York) and Christopher Wong (Houston), brother Alan Lennemann (Spokane, Washington), sisters-in-law Peggy Duryea (Houston), and Polly Duryea (Lincoln, Nebraska), and numerous nieces and nephews.
Services will be held at 11:00 a.m. Saturday, July 29, 2023 at the Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church, 1820 Fulton Street in Falls City, Nebraska. After the mass, please join the family for lunch at the church hall. Interment will follow at St. Mary’s Cemetery in Dawson, Nebraska. She will be laid to rest next to her son, Eric, who rests alongside Jay.
In lieu of flowers, please make a donation in memory of Mary Elizabeth Kyle to Houston Hospice, a 501(c)(3) charity, or Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Falls City.
